I know a lot of you are planning your Spring Break trips to Disneyland, so I thought I would offer my advice.

1) Our ultimate trip is Sunday – Thursday (add a day if you want to see Harry Potter at Universal). We drive on Sunday and arrive around dinner time. We make reservations for Goofy’s Kitchen for Sunday night. We get great pictures and autographs with the characters and starts our Disney trip off with a bang.

2) Stay as close to the park as you can afford. Use Hilton points for the Hilton. Good Neighbor hotels are always a good choice. Plan to stay within walking distance.

3) Purchase your tickets online. If your kids are younger, no need to Park Hopper, one park is enough.

4) Download the Disneyland Mobile App. It has Park Maps, Character locations, Wait Times, Dining Options, Shop locations, Restroom locations, PhotoPass, Entertainment and so much more

5) Buy MaxPass. Once in the park, this lets you get all of your Fastpasses on your phone. It also gives you access to all of the professional photos that the Disney Cast Members take.

6) Pack basic snacks. Every restaurant and food kiosk offers free ice water, so with a few snacks, you can eat one meal at the Park each day. We prefer to carry one backpack with hand sanitizer, power bars and apples.

7) Make Restaurant Reservations – we usually eat at two nice places each trip. Goofy’s kitchen for the characters and Carthage Circle (California Adventure) for the relaxing atmosphere.

When you enter Disneyland, get Fantasmic Fast Passes. These are paper tickets and do not interfere with the ride fast passes.

When you enter California Adventure, get World of Color Fast Passes. These are paper tickets and do not interfere with your fast passes.

Disney recently announced that there is a new themed land coming to the Disney’s California Adventure park in 2018. The company is converting Paradise Pier, that California themed boardwalk that features midway games and the popular California Screamin’ roller coaster, into an area devoted to the movies of Pixar. So say goodbye to the Santa Monica Pier, and hello to attractions based around The Incredibles, Toy Story, Wall-E, Inside Out and other Pixar greats.

California Screamin’ will be rolling away forever, as it’ll be rebranded into the Incredicoaster. This Incredibles-based coaster will maintain the same track layout as Screamin’, but with retooled cars and a new queue. Screamin’ is already one of the most popular rides at the park, but this will give Hot Hubby and I another excuse for riding.

Elsewhere Inside Out will be getting its own small area, with an as-yet-unrevealed “family-friendly attraction”. Toy Story Midway Mania, which has been a part of Paradise Pier for almost a decade, will be the linchpin of a new, expanded Toy Story section. And those old midway games will be getting a Pixar overhaul, so expect something like an Up balloon game.

This will give us another reason to visit Disneyland while we wait for Star Wars Land to open in 2019.

One of my favorite things in California Adventure is the Animation Building. Have you visited there? It looks kind of plain from the front and I think most people arrive to the Frozen Live show early, and wander in to kill time. But not me. I am serious about the animation building.

You can meet Anna and Elsa, from Frozen. There is a demonstration on how to draw Disney characters. Turtle Talk lets you talk to the stars of Finding Nemo. There are places to see how early animation was created. But my favorite is Beast’s Castle!

The castle has a huge fireplace and pictures of Beast before transformation It also has a game to tell you which Disney Character you are! You are seated at a table with Belle’s book open and Cogsworth leads you through the questions. The final question is always the hard one, because it decides whether you are a villain or a princess: Would you rather eat a nice lunch with friends or a lunch of nice friends? Hot Hubby chose the latter and is most like Captain Hook. I chose a nice lunch and I am most like Mulan!!!